Experts to Speak at University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) will host national experts on addictions and substance abuse during a fall seminar series that will begin Sept. 29.

The seminars will be free, open to the public and held at 10 a.m. on Fridays in the RIA building, 1021 Main St. at the corner of Goodrich on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

The Sept. 29 seminar will feature Helene Raskin White, Ph.D., of Rutgers University, who will present her research on "Changes in Substance Use During the Transition to Emerging Adulthood." A professor in the Sociology Department and at the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers, White is engaged in research on the causes, consequences and co-existence of substance use and other problem behaviors in college-age youth. She also is developing and evaluating substance use prevention programs for college students. White has more than 30 years of experience in her field. She recently was awarded a Women of Achievement Award from the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs and the senior scholar award from the Alcohol, Drugs and Tobacco Section of the American Sociological Association.

The seminar series will continue on Oct. 20, with Marc Potenza, M.D., Ph.D., presenting "Pathological Gambling and Co-occurring Disorders." Potenza is associate professor of psychiatry in the Division of Substance Abuse at Yale University, director of the Women and Addictive Disorders Core of Yale's Women's Health Research and director of Yale's Problem Gambling Clinic. His current research encompasses the origins and treatment of pathological gambling, and the relationship between pathological gambling and drug use disorders. Potenza is board certified in both psychiatry and addiction psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and has received professional honors or recognition from regional, national and international organizations in neuroscience, science, psychiatry, addiction psychiatry, biological psychiatry, problem gambling and drug dependence.

On Nov. 3, Paul Gruenewald, Ph.D., scientific director of the Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) in Berkeley, California will present a lecture titled "The

Spatial Ecology of Alcohol Problems: Niche Theory and Assortative Drinking." Gruenewald is principal investigator on three research projects funded by the NIAAA: an investigation into the relationships of alcohol outlets to violence among adults in California; a contract to develop advanced ecosystem models of alcohol-related problems; and a grant to develop scientific bases for the prevention of alcohol-related problems. He also directs the Spatial Systems Group, a coordinating center for PIRE-wide work using Geographic Information Systems, Spatial Statistical Systems and Spatial Dynamic Models.

The final seminar on Dec. 15 will be a presentation by Samir Haj-Dahmane, Ph.D., RIA senior research scientist, titled "The Endocannabinoid System: A New Player in the Regulation of Stress Related Mood Disorders." Haj-Dahmane's specialization is the brain cholinergic system, cognitive functions and the neurophysiology of cocaine addictions. His research into dopamine mechanisms and receptors in raphe 5-HT neurons, funded by the National Institute on Mental Health, used electrophysiological, pharmacological and immunohistochemical techniques to characterize the cellular mechanism by which dopamine receptor activation increases the excitability of dorsal Raphe nucleus serotonergic (5-HT) neurons. His investigation on the cerebral cortex and schizophrenia was funded by the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression. Haj-Dahmane arrived at RIA in 1999 following appointments in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit and the University of Pierre and Marie Currie in Paris.

The Research Institute on Addictions has been a leader in the study of addictions since 1970 and a research center of the University at Buffalo since 1999.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.